My review of this band’s debut album concluded with the statement: if the band improves their riffing creativity and clean vocal steadiness, the next album should be killer. Well, they are and it is. It’s clear already from the thirteen minute mastodontic opener “These fevered days”. Vocal variety is abundant – apart from the traditional growls and cleans, we have them dual-tracked and also a sort of cleanish, tormented yelling. Simply superb. Although they’re always performing very decent, I’m still not one hundred percent convinced by the clean vocals. Sometimes they’re hitting the spot, other times I think them too flat and static. But that’s about the only thing striking me as a potential (minor) issue.
The instrumental section is usually pure and staunch – I’m getting hooked to riffs and progressions the more they get repeated; I wasn’t bored for a second – and when I almost was, the song promptly changed direction. The third and “final” song (self-titled) is divided over a few tracks. Here, the songs have some dauntless passages in terms of structure – like the break and reprise in “L’Avenue des Coeurs Passés”. The creativity (or haste?) was obviously itching here, as the songs display unrest and capriciousness in their flow. Nothing wrong with that, but it’s more difficult to get enthralled by continuously changing melodies and rhythms, regardless of how great they are.
That being said, “Roots of Grief” is a worthy sophomore album – no pretenses, loads of contents.